"And real gold eyebrows that have the same shape as a church roof, and the most beautiful real gold hair
. . . I always expect it to be hard like metal, yet it's soft and fine like a baby's . . . . And skin you must use gold powder on, it shines so . . . And the most beautiful mouth, just made for kissing . . ."
She sat staring at him with that tender pink mouth slightly open, the way it had been on their first meeting; he reached out and took the empty cup from her.
"I think you need a little more. champagne," he said, filling it. "I must admit this is nice, to stop and give ourselves a little break from the track. And thank you for thinking of asking Mr. MacQueen for the sandwiches and wine."
The big. Rolls engine ticked gently in the silence, warm air pouring almost soundlessly through the vents; two separate kinds of lulling noise. Luke unknotted his tie and pulled it off, opened his shirt collar. Their jackets were on the back seat, too warm for the car.
"Oh, that feels good! I don't know who invented ties and then insisted a man was only properly dressed when he wore one, but if ever I meet him, I'll strangle him with his own invention."
He turned abruptly, lowered his face to hers, and seemed to catch the rounded curve of her lips exactly into his, like two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle; though he didn't hold her or touch her elsewhere she felt locked to him and let her head follow as he leaned back, drawing her forward onto his. chest. His hands came up to clasp her head, the better to work at that dizzying, amazingly responsive mouth, drain it. Sighing, he abandoned himself to feeling nothing else, at home at last with those silky baby's lips finally fitting his own. Her arm slid around his neck, quivering fingers sank into his hair, the palm of her other hand coming to rest on the smooth brown skin at the base of his throat. This time he didn't hurry, though he had risen and hardened before giving her the second cup of champagne, just from looking at her. Not releasing her head, he kissed her cheeks, her closed eyes, the curving bones of the orbits beneath her brows, came back to her cheeks because they were so satiny, came back to her mouth because its infantile shape drove him mad, had driven him mad since the day he first saw her.
And there was her throat, the little hollow at its base, the skin of her shoulder so delicate and cool and dry . . . . Powerless to call a halt, almost beside himself with fear lest she should call a halt, he removed one hand from her head and plucked at the long row of buttons down the back of her dress, slid it off her obedient arms, then the straps of her loose satin slip. Face buried between her neck and shoulder, he passed the tips of his fingers down her bare back, feeling her startled little shivers, the sudden hard points to her breasts. He pushed his face lower in a blind, compulsive touch-search of one cold, cushioned surface, lips parted, pressing down, until they closed over taut ruched flesh. His tongue lingered for a dazed minute, then his hands clutched in agonized pleasure on her back and he sucked, nipped, kissed, sucked .... The old eternal impulse, his particular preference, and it never failed. It was so good, good, good, goooooood! He did not cry out, only shuddered for a wrenching, drenching moment, and swallowed in the depths of his throat.
Like a satiated nursling, he let the nipple pop out of his mouth, formed a kiss of boundless love and gratitude against the side of her breast, and lay utterly still except for the heaves of his breathing. He could feel her mouth in his hair, her hand down inside his shirt, and suddenly he seemed to recollect himself, opened his eyes. Briskly he sat up, pulled her slip straps up her arms, then her dress, and fastened all the buttons deftly. "You'd better marry me, Meghann," he said, eyes soft and laughing. "I don't think your brothers would approve one little bit of what we just did." "Yes, I think I'd better too," she agreed, lids lowered, a delicate flush in her cheeks.
"Let's tell them tomorrow morning."
"Why not? The sooner the better."
"Next Saturday I'll drive you into Gilly. We'll see Father Thomas-I suppose you'd like a church wedding-arrange for the banns, and buy an engagement ring."
"Thank you, Luke."
Well, that was that. She had committed herself, there could be no turning back. In a few weeks or however long it took to call banns, she would marry Luke O'neill. She would be . . . Mrs. Luke O'neill! How strange! Why did she say yes? Because he told me I must, he said I was to do it. But why? To remove him from danger? To protect himself, or me? Ralph de Bricassart, sometimes I think I hate you ....
The incident in the car had been startling and disturbing. Not a bit like that first time. So many beautiful, terrifying sensations. Oh, the touch of his hands! That electrifying tugging at her breast sending vast widening rings clear through her! And he did it right at the moment her conscience had reared its head, told the mindless thing she seemed to have become that he was taking off her clothes, that she must scream, slap him, run away. No longer lulled and half senseless from champagne, from warmth, from the discovery that it was delicious to be kissed when it was done right, his first great gulping taking-in of her breast had transfixed her, stilled common sense, conscience and all thought of flight. Her shoulders came up off his chest, her hips seemed to subside against him, her thighs and that un- named region at their top rammed by his squeezing hands against a ridge of his body hard as a rock, and she had just wanted to stay like that for the rest of her days, shaken to her soul and yawning empty, wanting . . . . Wanting what? She didn't know. In the moment at which he had put her away from him she hadn't wanted to go, could even have flown at him like a savage. But it had set the seal on her hardening resolve to marryLuke O'neill. Not to mention that she was convinced he had done to her the thing which made babies start.
